2043: The Countdown to Total AI Automation—and the Three-Year Cliff

If you’ve ever dreamed of a future where your job disappears overnight—relax. The smart money estimates you have about nineteen years left. Economist Tom Davidson’s “compute-centric” model predicts that AI will automate 100% of human cognitive labor by 2043. That’s right—2043. Groan if you must, but this isn’t mere clickbait. It’s a rigorously simulated forecast, grounded in compute mathematics, algorithmic efficiency, and historical technology curves. The destination is daunting. Equally disturbing is the speed of our approach.